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" and not to God: and I would not that ye should "have fellowship with demons. Ye cannot drink "the cup of the Lord, and the cup of demons: 66 ye cannot be partakers of the Lord's table, and " of the table of demons." The apostle John also concludes his General Epiftle to the chriftian churches with thefe words, I John v. 21. "Lit"tle children, keep yourselves from idols." Laftly, the eating of meat facrificed to idols was one of the charges which our Lord, after his afcenfion, brought against the churches of Pergamos, and Thyatira, Rev. ii. 14. 20.

Through the whole of the New Teftament, there is not fo much as one example of any invifible being, who is addreffed as the object of prayer, but the fame one living and true God, who is alfo called the God and Father of our Lord Jefus "Chrift," (Eph. iii. 14. "For this cause I "bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord "Jesus Christ,") and every instance of homage approaching to divine is ftrongly repreffed. When Cornelius fell down at the feet of Peter, though it cannot be supposed that he who was himself a worfhipper of the true God, meant to pay him divine honours, the apoftle replied, Acts x. 26, Stand

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up; I myself also am a man." And twice that John fell down before the angel who was explaining to him the vifions of the book of Revelations,

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he was rebuked in the fame manner, Rev. xix. 10. xxii. 9. "See thou do it not: I am thy fellow"fervant, and of thy brethren that have the tes"timony of Jefus: worship God."

Confidering how ftrongly this great article, the worship of one God only, is guarded in all the books of fcripture, it would feem impoffible that it should ever be infringed by any who profefs to hold the books of the Old and New Teftament for the rule of their faith and practice; and yet we shall fee, that this very article was the fubject of one of the firft and the most radical of all the corruptions of christianity. For upon the very fame principles, and in the very fame manner, by which dead men came to be worshipped by the antient idolaters, there was introduced into the chriftian church, in the first place, the idolatrous worship of Jefus Chrift, then that of the Virgin Mary; and laftly, that of innumerable other faints, and of angels alfo; and this modern chriftian idolatry has been attended with all the abfurdities, and with fome, but not all the immoralities, of the antient heathen. idolatry. It has, however, evidently promoted a very great neglect of the duties we owe both to God and man.

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SECTION II.

Of the moral attributes of God.

THAT God is a being of the greatest purity and

rectitude is another important doctrine of revealed religion; and though, like the doctrine of the divine unity, it may be faid to be the dictate of nature, it was a doctrine which mankind had in a great measure overlooked, and never fufficiently attended to. Entertaining low notions of the beings on whom they fuppofed that they immediately depended, and afcribing to them a great variety of objects and pursuits, some of which were exceedingly trifling and unworthy, they had recourfe to a variety of methods by which they thought to recommend themfelves to their favour, many of which had no connection with moral virtue, and fome of them were grofs violations of the moft fundamental rules of it.

Judging of their Gods as having been, many of them, men no better than themfelves, but fubject to envy and jealoufy, they were in general more especially prone to that kind of superstition which confifts in mortifying themfelves, in order to re commend them to God. If any great calamity be

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fel them, imagining the wrath of their God was to be appeased, like that of revengeful and unreasonable men, with fomething that coft them very dear, they fometimes did not spare their own children, but put them to a cruel death in their facrifices; and they made dreadful havock of the rest of their fpecies on much less occafions.

In the Jewish and christian revelations, on the contrary, we fee the moral character of the divine being fet in the cleareft, the ftrongest, and most amiable light. We find that the God with whom we have to do loves all his creatures; that if he chaftifes them it is with reluctance, and only for their good, and especially for their improvement in virtue; that he ftands in no need of any of his creatures, and has no pleasure either in the compliments they pay him, or the gifts and facrifices which they make to him, though, as an expreffion of their homage, dependence, and gratitude, he may think proper to require fuch things.

The proper feat of virtue and folid happiness being in the heart, the divine being, as his character is revealed to us in our books of fcripture, appears to be most folicitous that our hearts and affections be right, and not to pay much attention to mere external actions, which was every thing that the heathen Gods were imagined to trouble themselves about. On the contrary, the God of the Jews and chriftians is always reprefented as fearching

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the hearts, and as attending to the inmoft thoughts, inclinations, and purposes of the mind; fo that no fecret or intended iniquity can escape his animadverfion.

In order to exhibit the doctrines of the fcriptures concerning the moral attributes of God, I fhall, firft confider his purity or holiness, including his regard to moral virtue in general, and then his goodnefs, mercy, and veracity, in the order in which they are here mentioned.

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Paffages which exprefs the purity or holiness of God in general, are exceedingly numerous, and many of them very emphatical; as Lev. xix. 2. "Ye fhall be holy: for I the Lord your God am "holy." The angels, in the vifion of Isaiah, vi. 3. are represented as crying one to another, "Holy holy, holy is the Lord of hosts, the whole earth " is full of his glory." Mofes, in that remarkable fong which he composed for the Ifraelites, in order that they might commit it to memory, fays, Deut. xxxii. 3. "I will publish the name of the Lord: "afcribe ye greatnefs unto our God. He is the "rock, his work is perfect: for all his ways are "judgment: a God of truth, and without iniquity, "juft and right is he." Habbakuk, addreffing himself to God, fays, ch. i. 12: "Art thou not "from everlasting, O Lord my God, mine holy "one? Thou art of purer eyes than to behold "evil, and canft not look on iniquity." When

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